We have a Prime Minister who denounces the practice of chequebook medicine and it turns out that he is actually practising it himself, queue-jumping at private clinics. I have a simple question: How is the government ever going to explain its hypocrisy on health care?December 3, 2005: Stephen Harper, fresh off a declaration that his party won't encourage a parallel private system, indicates his willingness to not only use a dual clinic, but pay for private services:
On Vancouver's CKNW Radio open-line show Warren on the Weekend, host Peter Warren asked Harper and Layton at different times on Saturday if they would use a private clinic if their wife needed a hip replacement and were in pain...Which leads to the obvious question: How is Stephen Harper ever going to explain his hypocrisy on health care?
Warren: You would have gone private?
Harper: If that's what I had to do.
As a bonus, note that one party leader not only backs the public system with words, but cares enough about public delivery that he plans to continue using it himself:
Layton said he and his wife Olivia Chow, a candidate in Toronto's downtown Trinity-Spadina riding, would rather suffer than go private.And better yet, here's the Layton quote from a more thorough version of the story:
"We would work for the public, for the system, because we believe in it," he said.
"I can understand the choices people are having to make here," Layton said in Burnaby, B.C.And that's the right answer from anybody truly committed to health care. Which obviously doesn't include the leaders of the Libs or the Cons.
"My dad had Parkinson's, my wife (Olivia Chow) was diagnosed with cancer, I ended up in the emergency ward with appendix (problems). These are real human decisions.
"Olivia and I have talked a lot about this. We would not support the idea, personally, of buying our way to the front of a line."
(Edited to add new quote.)
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